The Long Road
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Some memories from old marvel pbem gaming.
1. Default Chapter

"The Long Road"  
  
A writing begins like a painting. The first sentence strokes the paper and   
  
lights color to that world. This one begins in a white world that has been   
  
frequented much lately, on a silverish street, with a large caravan of   
  
people. Only a few in that simple piece of transportation look back to the   
  
road behind them, rather than to the road in front of them with hope.  
  
A woman with long black hair and what appears to be light blue skin who   
  
appears idly bored in the back seat. A blonde hair child with pale pink skin   
  
and a Russian accent sitting in the second full long seat. a set of young   
  
beach goers with dark tans, and darker brown hair talking without making a   
  
sound. A beautiful red head with quiet green eyes who watched over everyone   
  
in the car. Then last was the girl in the front passenger seat with a pair   
  
of sunglasses holding back her hair and a nervous smile.  
  
The road behind them was bumpy at the moment. In places it was curved,   
  
jagged and laced with rocks. In other places it was gone completely leaving   
  
one to wonder how the van made it across at all. These few watched, or   
  
perhaps glanced back with an understanding that in one way or another   
  
pertained to the things they had seen or experience as written for them, or   
  
their writer, who at present was driving the van very silently, on their way   
  
to place some people had rumored might be a place they could call home.  
  
"Are we there yet?" A voice broke the silence. It was the young child in   
  
between the Russian girl, and the woman in white robes with her eyes closed,   
  
somewhere beyond prayers and meditations.  
  
"We'll be there soon enough, Rosie," Kitty Pryde, a fictive of Marvel,   
  
called from the front row of long seat, next to the window and the purple   
  
capped woman. "Don't worry too much. Trust the writer."  
  
"Trust the writer! Hah! We could've gone first class," the socialist uptight   
  
controlling woman with white blond hair, in the seat two behind the Kitty,   
  
and one behind the child said snottily, with much distaste to the close   
  
cabinet. "Or atleast taken a Limo."  
  
"And I could've teleported there and spent this time now in Hell to keep   
  
from having to be within ten feet of you." Illyana, the young blonde Russian   
  
Marvel fic, replied with a sneer, as she placed and arm around the small   
  
shoulders of Rosa-Leetah who sat next to her, in the middle of their seat.   
  
"Don't mind her…she's just a b- an ice witch."  
  
"Not that you're being a brat or anything." the woman with the blue skin   
  
muttered to herself, filing her nails in her own annoyance to the whole   
  
situation.  
  
"Mind you tongue, child." The woman in the white rove stated at Casse,   
  
coming out of her trance of thought. If it was up to her they could all stop   
  
talking and start reflecting inward like novices. But in a few of their   
  
cases that would be like asking for rain in the Sahara Desert.  
  
"Calm down everyone," came a voice two seat over from Casse and one behind   
  
Emma, from a fiery haired beauty in the very back corner, another fic from   
  
the Marvel writers that the writer had becoming overly attached to. "We're   
  
stopping."  
  
The writer tapped her thumb on the steering wheel as she parked the van and   
  
people began to pour out the side of it. As the last few excited the side,   
  
and she still sat against the seat glancing back and out the side door, the   
  
fic in the passenger seat next to her leaned over. She was a new one to this   
  
game. Not so perfectly confident, with rational fears, and problems, but   
  
enough determination to live with herself for whatever she did.  
  
"Hey, you okay?" Baby Jane asked, pulling her sunglasses down from her hair,   
  
staring at her driver with solemn, concerned eyes.  
  
Her writer simply nodded and gave an affirmative noise without looking up at   
  
her pulling the keys out opening her door and going about getting out.  
  
Rosa-Leetah stood in front of the crowd facing the place reading off a piece   
  
of paper, while most took in the place quietly. "Mu-tantMan-sion," she   
  
pronounced slowly. "Yeah, this is the place. It's kinda quiet, don't you   
  
think?"  
  
"Hey, everyone!" called a young girl smiling with corn silk blonde hair from   
  
near the door, her hand on the knob. She was another Marvel fic by the name   
  
of Holly-Ann, who'd vanished into character Limbo long before some other   
  
even existed. "It's open already!"  
  
"Can you see anyone?" a few of them called out. Peeking in she shrugged.   
  
"Can we go explore?" Holly-Anne turned back to her writer with an   
  
enthusiastic glance, who was standing at the bottom of the steps to the   
  
place just watching her people scurry about. She gave a half shrug and   
  
nodded her approval unmoving as everyone of them seemed to file through the   
  
door with enthusiasm, annoyance, relief or joy.  
  
The writer moved slowly, the van behind her vanishing as she took stares,   
  
though the road didn't. The steps she left slowly turned silver and became   
  
part of the road. She stopped at the door where it hung open, the voices of   
  
her fictives and the ones she took care of that didn't belong to her echoing   
  
through the hall before her.  
  
Raising a hand slowly she ran it along the side of the second half of the   
  
double doors still closed. Voices echoed softly in the writers ear. Some   
  
were fictives other were friends. Some were already inside and some stood on   
  
the brink with her even though they weren't there with her physically at the   
  
moment.  
  
A hand covered hers and she looked up to meet the face of the gentler two of   
  
the Summer's twins in a pair of soft brown eyes and green glimmers. The   
  
tanned hand squeezed hers gently, and the eyes shimmered with compassion.  
  
"You don't have to, y'know," she said, the California accent rounding her   
  
words beautifully with her only half cultured speech.  
  
"They're waiting for me." Her writer said lightly, with a soft air of many   
  
emotions, as she motioned inside the door with a nod to people unseen.  
  
"They'd wait." Her brother a tanned tall mysterious man said firmly in a   
  
deep timbre, as took her position standing over Kylie with his arms lightly   
  
around her shoulders. The girl reached up hugging her arms over his and the   
  
writer simply nodded.  
  
"I know." The writer replied again in the same tone, even though the   
  
smallest bit of a sad and at the same time happy smile wisped her lips.  
  
"Is someone congregating court here or are we going to let the heat in to   
  
stay, too???" Spoke up a darker deeper male voice, of a man in a dark   
  
business suite who strode by them, lightly moving Kyle and Kylie aside   
  
trying to get in. Behind him walked the woman in the purple cape and hood,   
  
with another man in a grey suite with a red rose in his lapel.  
  
"No," his writer said softly, in a faint whisper. "No one here atleast."  
  
"Where is everyone?" The Emma fic came back down the hallway, looking over   
  
jaded and annoyed again. "I'd like to get back to captured the flag before I   
  
have to redo planning dinner, schedules, bedroom set ups and introducing our   
  
newest guest to the academy."  
  
"Calm down, Frosty," Casse said with a laugh, somehow still leaning against   
  
the open door. "It's not like you're going to melt if you don't get to your   
  
game in the next seven seconds."  
  
"Where is everyone, anyway?" Rosa-Leetah piped up in curiosity this time as   
  
a bright flash of light made everyone in the small collective wince, her   
  
eyes open wide with wonder and joy. "Where are the people that'll bring this   
  
all to life again?"  
  
"Playing God," Casse offered tartly.  
  
"They are not!" Kitty jumped up, having just returned with Illyana. "They're   
  
beautifying your new home! Have some respect, Casse."  
  
"Whatever…" the blue skinned girl called as she lit herself a cigarette and   
  
wandered off, vanishing as she did.  
  
"There's a notice that says things start officially tomorrow," Jean said   
  
lightly holding a clipboard up, with names of people already arrived, and   
  
things already happening as they stood around.  
  
"Well, we're here." Baby Jane offered with a smile a she held out a hand to   
  
her writer.  
  
"That we are."  
  
The author said and smiled faintly again. She took the offered hand and then   
  
Rosa-Leetah's, too, as they crossed the thresholds and started walking   
  
slowly through the hallways. Sounds filled echoes in the long hallway that   
  
marched only from Wednesday to Thursday, and some moved from one week to   
  
another, and one list to another, and still stayed the same, in which   
  
fictives laughed and told jokes, and others groused about meaningless   
  
trivialness. 


	2. Part Twp Looking Back

"The Long Road"  
  
A writing begins like a painting. The first sentence strokes the paper and lights color to that world. This one begins in a white world that hasn't been frequented much lately, on a silverish street, with a lone child. She has dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. She's clad in a blue jeans bell bottoms, a white tank top that doesn't reach her jeans, and sandals. Her hair waves in the wind behind her as she stared forward.   
  
"We've all lost so much haven't we?" her voice whispered on the wind around her curling like a choking wind, something to clutter the throat. It was ominous and pain filled.  
  
"Yes. Gained some too... but yes."   
  
That was the answer, and she heard it, even if he wasn't standing there beside him. He couldn't be, because here she was always alone. She only heard him because then he'd been the only one close enough to understand and in some ways he'd always be that person. He'd seen her through it all. She was in the whiteness that she'd paved, created, driven and destroyed only to rebuild. This was the place that crated on her emotions, her drive, and her crazy impulses.   
  
True, it wasn't only hers, but at the moment, this part was.   
  
"What are you doing?"   
  
The long ago driver turned to one side, to see a figure who came through the wall at her. The sight made her smile softly. The young woman was beautiful. She was the kind of person she'd want to grow up to be like. Beautiful dark brown hair tumbling down her back, dressed in close fitting blue jeans, a leather jacket, and what looked to be a white shirt under it. Curios expression, touched with a slight tinge that told her the girl wondered why she asked. They all knew their writer could be weird.   
  
"Thinking." She said.   
  
"About?" Another voice asked.  
  
The writer blinked and almost laughed. The woman with the bright green eyes had walked all but literally out of nowhere, right in front of her. Not that it was at all the unexpected from the Subreality or from Jean. She was dressed in stretch pants and body suite with an X in a ring over her heart. A towel was around her neck. But in the next second, her clothes changed to her costume. The beautiful Phoenix across her chest.   
  
"Can't you tell?" The watched asked, with an amused sound to her voice as she watched Jean move toward her. How could she deny herself a favorite in my mass, when it was this fiery incarnation that had brought her back to the game after her lapse in faith. She saw Jean smile almost, and turned to looking beyond where she'd come from.   
  
"What do you see there?"  
  
"I see," Kitty started, taking a stance and staring up, a hand covering her eyes from the sudden brilliance of the sun appearing and drawing the sky in with it. "My foundation and my beginnings. The lessons that taught me the most important things and the people who sculpted my future."  
  
The writer ventured a glance at Jean who was still staring in the direction and waited. Nothing. And a few minutes passed and just as she opened her mouth to ask the red head, she finally spoke, breaking silence with golden speech, and gentle emotions reflected inside it.   
  
"I could stare forever and I'd still see the same time." A smile touched the woman's lips as she hugged her arms to her chest. "I see sanctuary. I see family. I see home."  
  
"Are you two daft? It's just a building."   
  
All three heads spun to look up at this fourth voice. It was pure silver turned into spikes to poke them all, but she couldn't turn herself into one ever. She sat on the top of the wall that was off to their left, looking like a child poised to jump or to sit calmly, but she was anything but a child. Everything about her scream danger, perfection, and eroticism. Everything from the painted on leather pants and loose white shirt that barely covered, to the danger blue eyes, in the milky smooth face.   
  
"It'll never be just a building, Casse. Not even if you wished it so."  
  
The woman bristled under her writer's tongue, especially at her name, but only scowled in response now. Perhaps she didn't want to speak ill of the writer for fear of what she might do in the next post now that she was being cruel or perhaps it was because the words were true, but that they'd never know as she looked off in the distance. Always more comfortable with the look at, than the being in or around.   
  
Kitty squinted to one side and then finally said with a sound of disbelief in her tone. "H-hey! Is that what I think it is?"  
  
There was more squinting, one "ah", one "uck", and a general feeling suddenly that this wouldn't be ending very soon now.   
  
"Yes. I do believe it is." The writer was smiling faintly, neither happy nor sad, just simply smiling softly looking at it. "It's the van."   
  
"Do we have to do this mopey thing about our stupid beginnings?"  
  
Kitty glared at the woman suddenly, fierce were her brown eyes. "Well, you could stay on that wall. It wouldn't bother me in the slightest if you stayed right there. I personally had enough of you the first time we sat in the van. No wonder she doesn't put you with people. The more your away the better."  
  
With that Katherine started on her way toward the open garage and the van parked about twenty feet from it down the path. The van was chipped of its paint in large in places, and looked dented in others. Their writer seemed to falter staring at it, but was stopped by the hands of the red head beside her.  
  
"Don't stop now," she said softly, and for a moment the writer stared at her and then nodded. Then she stood and looked at Casse silently. A completely silent conversation, just a simple exchange of expressions. Neither mean nor nice, simply accepting, and Jean wasn't sure she caught it or it was the sunlight reflected on her writer, but for a moment she thought she saw her smile before turning to walk after Kitty.   
  
It wasn't a lonely walk, walking with the one woman who she felt she fit perfectly into the skin of. She could almost laugh and point to one of those stupid quizzes she'd taken saying they were so alike. But she didn't. There was no need for speech, or drawl, no need to explain or conversate. Between the two there was something none of the other characters had with the writer. A simple being.   
  
By the time they'd got there, Kitty had slung open the door of the van and was standing there staring in, but not doing anything. An audible shiver ran through her spin that they could see, and she tightened her hold on the door handle.  
  
"Something wrong?" The writer called out, and she missed the fact that even Jean hesitated to step forward in the same steps. That the writer didn't know what this was, was a touch unnerving. For both women.   
  
"No--" Kitty said slowly, like she wasn't saying everything at all. "Not wrong."  
  
Except it still wasn't everything. Her tone was a little off, confused, appalled, trembling. As the writer approached, Kitty moved aside for her, and when she stepped up, Kitty stepped back. She stared forward for a long while before saying anything. She'd never considered this before. When had this all happened? What had happened to all of them?   
  
The center of her heart hurt.   
  
"Are they-- ?" she gasped. "Dead?"  
  
"No. Not dead." Kitty swallowed and said, reaching out to touch her writer, who waved her hand off without seeing her reach out, and glancing over as if demanding an answer. "Their...ah...kind of asleep."  
  
She looked back, peering in. The back corner held a small long haired blonde curled up with a white blanket, a soft glow around her, looking like she might wake any second. Next to her was another blonde child with her hair in braids who looked like she'd half faded away in the darkness that kept the light from the outside from reaching inside the van.   
  
A seat up from them, a man with sunglasses and a black trench coat was slumbering across the entire seat. He had the entire seat to himself, except the very edge where a woman with curves, small daisy dukes and a maroon play boy bunny shirt was curled out of the seat, her head on her arm on the top of the seat. The front row held far against the window a woman in white robes, and another child in her lap with soft brown hair.  
  
How interesting and terrifying and how shocking all at once.   
  
"Well, not all of us."  
  
The writers head snapped to the voice. On the floor beside where the man on the seat laying across was laying, was a woman on the floor. A lab top was laying open on the floor in front of her. She closed it slowly, and the light from the screen that had illuminated her face quickly brought her shadows in the darkness of the bus. How could she have not looked for this one after seeing the man on the seat?   
  
How could this have happened? What was wrong with them all?  
  
"Nothin," Kylie said softly. Her writer jumped slightly, and Kylie tapped her forehead slightly. "It's not mine...but when he's around and not using his shields, when he's down, sometimes thought from around me slip in. Give me some interesting dream scene's."  
  
She almost pouted then. The writer hadn't smiled and she'd been going for just that something to smile for. She could tell their writer had never been here, never thought about this place. Never considered what happened to them when....Kylie moved to sit up and scoot toward the door, but no light came in so she didn't illuminate at all.   
  
"Don't worry. None of us are hurting. It doesn't hurt at all. It's like being asleep, except it's not sleep." Watching her creator begin to look more confused as she nodded acting like she did understand, her emotions reading panic and fear and confusion still.   
  
"It's what happens to us. We go back to the beginning. When...." Kylie stammered slightly and looked at the other two over the creators shoulders. She didn't doubt their stepping back. She'd do it, too, this close to here. "We come here when you don't have time for us anymore."  
  
"But I always-"  
  
Kylie shook her head and interrupted the sudden outburst from the girl at the door, who was younger than her, and nevertheless, more powerful without powers. "It's not a bad thing. It just is. You have school, friends, a life. Your own burdens. They are good things, too. We go...to sleep and wait for you to call on us when you need us again."  
  
"But I need you guys always," the writer said, shuddering a bite. "-and I love you guys."  
  
"And we love you, too." The small brunette replied from the darkness as she raised a hand to cover a yawn that opened her mouth now. "You come back when you miss us. We'll be here for you. Only a thought away. Remember?"  
  
The writer nodded slowly, feeling such an urge to cry at these peaceful faces and their complete silence in here, even from those written to snore. It was a lot more than she been prepared to see just looking back at her beginnings. She thought it was about the two moderators, and the fight, and the betraying. She didn't think it meant taking all the newer pains, too.   
  
"I 'member," she whispered softly.   
  
"What do you remember?"   
  
"Her. From before."   
  
The Californian angel suddenly burst into a soft laughter, that startled her writer and she stopped and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. You mean you think she's gone? She's not gone. She can't ever leave you. She's a piece of you and she's not the one out there now."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Kylie pointed to the seat beside the drivers seat. It had once been taken by Baby Jane in her first appearance to the Mutant Mansion, but it seemed fitting to see who was sitting there, and some how it comforted her heart to see it, too. Curled in to her seat, her legs in the center between the drivers seat and the passenger seat, was a woman who seemed best separate and alone. She had a creme suite on, with white heels, and perfectly cultured hair.   
  
The writer smiled sadly moving her gaze from Emma to the twin moving for her brother slowly, yawning deeper now. She moved his arm and curled up, with her head on his chest, still facing this direction. "Remember every once in a while, okay?"   
  
"I promise, Kylie." She said with a small nod.   
  
"Mmm." The smaller Summer's girl murmured, as her eyes clouded and she closed them slowly. Her writer took a step backwards and started to close the door slowly. She didn't want the sunshine to touch them right now. Let them rest peacefully. Let them have peace for a while.   
  
Turning to look at those behind her, she was surprised to see all three of them regarding her with almost matching expressions. That in its self should shock the entire world. The three of them couldn't have been more different in every way, from their looks to their personalities. They were all staring at her with things varying between confusion and worry all in one expression.   
  
She thought she understood at least. They didn't know if she'd brought one of them here to stay. They hadn't known what this place was either, except they understood it on sight, they way she couldn't. She opened her mouth and almost laughed when she was cut off again.   
  
"What'd you see?" That was Casse, acting brave though she was cared. How she could ever think she might be sacrificed, was beyond her writer, but not commented on. "I mean, when you look...in there."  
  
The writer looked a little confused and looked back at the closed van and then at the people gathered around her, fictives written by others and by her imagination. "Peace. Quiet. Relaxation." She looked at all of them not at ease at all and nodded toward the building as she saw Jean relax finally in a light degree before she spoke. "We should be getting back. They'll be missing us."  
  
As she took off, she heard sighs of relief, held breaths released and felt a weight drop from each of their shoulders. There was no talking. None of them, not even Casse, had something to say now. They'd all stared their own abyss in the face, straight on and lived to tell the tall, they'd walked away unscathed, but with the knowledge it would always be there.   
  
The writer though was in other thoughts. Of those she had loved and would miss. Was that all she had to remember? Was that all that lie behind her in her beginning till now? Was it only a blank slate for when she didn't have time? Why wasn't there some warning about this when she'd first drive in? Why hadn't someone thought about this?   
  
"Have you forgotten me already?"  
  
The writer was startled by the voice she heard, and felt a spasm of denial held within her chest as she looked up at the woman before her. A yellow uniform, full body, with a brown jacket over it. Bright eyes and corn colored hair. Her words said in jest had twisted her lips into a smile and her body was relaxed and she radiated joy. And for what seemed like minutes her writer just stared at her.   
  
And then tears began to fall down form her eyes and Crystal's eyes went wide. She hadn't meant to make her cry. She came down the stairs, as the others moved a little closer into her, too, all of them not sure what had happened. All, but Crystal, who hadn't been there, blaming the van. It seemed good enough. They had their own daemons in that van now.   
  
But it was Crystal who their writer hugged, who looked startled and then hugged her back at the soft whisper. "Not sad. Happy. You've made me happy. You made me remember."  
  
Crystal who was her fresh start. Her unknown element in a game she knew like th back of her hand from so many of her years. Crystal who symbolized everything. The new moderators. The new rules. The new players. Tentative, flowing with joy and concern. That excitement in the first post from a new writer. Those nights getting to know people you never knew before. Finding out you had something in common that linked you.   
  
And she remembered those words. They had gained, too.   
  
She took a step back and looked at those people near, still half in Crystal arms and looked at those so close to her, filled with concern, relief and flowing with love. She reached up and wiped her tears away, as they fled like the clouds from the sunny sky when her shy smile came.   
  
"Well, we're still here."   
  
"That we are," Jean replied softly.  
  
At her side, the red head took her open side, and as all five of them turned and started walking up the stares the writer looked over her shoulder for a moment to the van that was vanishing again from being visible as they crossed the threshold. Sounds filled echoes in the long hallway that marched only from Monday to Tuesday, and some moved from discussion to fight to tears to laugh, and off of a list to back, and still stayed the same, in which fictives laughed and told jokes, and others groused about meaningless trivialness. 


End file.
